


forever is a promise

by inlovewithimpossibility



Series: Snapshots [10]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 06, Witness Protection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 11:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15795171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithimpossibility/pseuds/inlovewithimpossibility
Summary: During their time in Hope Springs, William begins to feel like a burden to Felicity but she reminds him just how much she loves him and that family runs a lot deeper than biology





	forever is a promise

**Author's Note:**

> 'Snapshots' is a series detailing missing or AU moments from Arrow so let me know any prompts you have in the comments or at my tumblr (girlsthatwewannakiss.tumblr.com)

The extensions are sewn into her hair by an ARGUS agent who claims to have studied a semester at beauty school. Felicity doesn’t know if she believes him from the way that he painfully stitches the blonde and pink hair into the small braids he tugged painfully into existence.

William luckily doesn’t have to undergo any major style changes but they tell him he’s not allowed to wear his letterman. It breaks Felicity’s heart and she argues that he’s at least allowed to keep it, it was the last birthday present he received from Samantha and she’ll be damned if anyone takes anything else away from her boy.

They’re told they can choose their own new names as if this makes the parting blow from Star City any easier and Felicity tries to hold back tears as William immediately announces that he wants to be ‘Jonas’. She picks Elizabeth, her mother’s middle name, and Elizabeth and Jonas Prince are born.

The cover story throws her for a hook. She’s a widow, Jonas is her last piece of her high school sweetheart who tragically died in a car crash recently. She never even graduated high school, having had Jonas at 15, and the job she’s got lined up in Hope Springs is as a waitress at a coffee house. It’s all a bit familiar for Felicity, it’s practically her mom’s story if you switch out the dead husband for lying jerk husband and coffee for cocktails.

William takes to the secret identity thing like a duck to water and when she asks him about it, he simply tells her that it’s nothing he hasn’t done before. His eyes hold darkness that she never wants to see in a thirteen-year-old’s eyes and she can tell that he’s still astronomically annoyed at his father, just like she is for the situation that they’re in.

She gains a new-found respect for her mother over the first month or so. She’s judged for her young son and they coordinate this new normal as well as they can. She works long shifts at the coffee house, heading straight there after dropping him at school and he comes there after school, either doing his homework in the corner or at the bookstore next door. She keeps him supplied with hot chocolate and he patiently waits for her shift to finish. Then they make their way home and they figure out dinner. She has no choice but to learn how to not be a disaster in the kitchen and they survive well enough, normally watching some TV or a movie before William heads upstairs to bed.

It’s a relatively easy routine to fall into. There’s the overhanging gape, always, but they muddle through, they have no choice but to. Felicity speaks to her husband at night, telling the air of how she misses him and updates him on their lives. She tells him of how angry she is at him for his stupidest mistake yet and she cries about how annoyed she is that she can’t really be mad at him because she misses him too damn much.

She can’t help her heart burning with the ache even when she and William are laughing, creating inside jokes and new memories that Oliver isn’t a part of. Their life is moving on without him and Felicity can hardly bear it, but she has to. And she will. For William. For the new normal that they’re building together.

Today, however, something’s off about the thirteen-year-old. He’s not as chatty as they drive back to the house on the too-perfect street with their judging neighbors. He throws his backpack in his room and slumps on the sofa, simply shrugging his shoulders when Felicity asks him what he wants for dinner.

She doesn’t want to push it so she throws a frozen pizza in the oven, playing some music as she waits and William scrolls through his phone. The oven beeps when it’s ready and Felicity slices it, handing him the plate as she comes and sits next to him on the couch.

“Not at the table?” He finally speaks and Felicity chuckles, turning the music down.

“Frozen pizzas are meant for the couch.” She replies and William shrugs, munching his food quickly and throwing his plate on the coffee table.

“I’m gonna go to my room.” He states and Felicity frowns, placing her own plate down.

“Hang on just a second buddy, sit back down.” She tells him calmly and doesn’t order him but the teenager releases a sigh, sinking back onto the cushions. “What’s up? You’re never this quiet.”

“I’m fine.” He answers and Felicity scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“Please, I am the best at reading Queen men and you young man, are not ‘fine’.” She answers and he chuckles at her poor imitation of his voice before he schools his features again.

“I’m just tired.” He tries and she releases a sound that she hopes sounds like a buzzer.

“You wanna try again or are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” She asks and William sighs, looking down at his hands as he fiddles with them.

“Back at the coffee house, that guy who was sat at the counter.” He states and Felicity frowns, trying to think back to his shift.

“Oh, Teeth McSmiley?” She asks and William chuckles, shaking his head before he nods.

“Yeah, um… you were talking to him a lot.” The teenager replies and Felicity frowns, shifting in her seat a little.

“Yeah, he was talking to me a lot. I was just answering him. What about him?” She asks and William sighs again, biting his lip and not even looking her way.

“He wasn’t just talking though. He was flirting.” He comments and everything clicks in Felicity’s head.

“Oh…” She starts and collects her thoughts in her head. “William, even if he was, I would never… I love your dad, there’s no one but your dad for me.” She tells him honestly and William looks up at her, tears starting to form in his eyes.

“But there could be.” He states and Felicity frowns, looking at him.

“What? William, I’m not quite following here.” She admits and William huffs once more, looking away again.

“I just… Dad’s in prison with multiple life sentences. There’s a chance we may never see him again and I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay here just because of me. You could meet someone else, be happy again. I love you, I want that for you. I just… I don’t want you to feel like I’m holding you back from doing that because Dad made a stupid decision and you got saddled with a kid that isn’t even yours.” The words flow out of him and Felicity feels her heart break a little more with every syllable.

This boy. This beautiful, sweet, wonderful boy.

Felicity briefly wonders how he got all of Oliver’s best and worst traits when he never even met the man until he was ten years old.

It breaks her heart to think that William thinks she’s only there with him because she loves Oliver. She loves William so much, as if he was her own. She swears that the moment she met him, he managed to tear a little piece of her heart off and now he wanders the world with it clutched in his hand. He is her son, if not biologically, and she loves him so much.

“Hey look at me.” She tells him and his teary eyes look up at her, making her heart break all over again. “When I said ‘I do’ to your father, I wasn’t just promising forever to him. I am here for you, always. Whatever is it that you need. You can never be a nuisance to me. I am never trying to take your mom’s place but I love you, so much. We need each other right now bud, and I need you to talk to me. It’s the only way I can help. Okay?”

He nods and she smiles, shifting forwards and drawing him into a hug. He buries his head in her shoulder and she feels his tears warm her shoulder as she rubs his back.

“I don’t need to move on from your father, I would never want to. You are never holding me back. I love you so much William and we are going to get through this together and we are going to see your dad again one day, I promise you that.” She tells him and he nods, a soft sob wracking his body and she feels the tears stream down her own cheeks as she holds her wonderful boy in her arms.

Later that night, when he’s asleep, she sneaks into his bedroom. His chest is rising and falling slowly and she allows herself to kiss his forehead lightly, careful not to wake him and something new on his bedside table catches her eye.

It’s a picture of the two of them that they took last weekend just after his baseball game. His team won and one of the other parents offered to take a picture of the two of them. They’re standing in front of the pitch, smiles wide on their faces and it’s one of Felicity’s favorite pictures. That’s not what catches her eye, however, it’s the sharpie laying next to it, the smell of it recently having being used and the words that are now etched onto the frame the picture’s in.

‘ _Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone.  
But heart of my heart, and soul of my soul’_

His handwriting’s a little messy, just like his father’s, and the sentiment sounds like something written on an all-inclusive Hallmark card but it’s perfectly fitting for them and Felicity covers her mouth as the tears spill down her face.

She looks back over at him, so peaceful as she sleeps, and thanks every higher power she can think of for this beautiful boy and the strength that he continues to give her every day.

They will get through this and they will do together because that is what family does.

They may not have been family for long but the love runs deep between them and that’s all that really matters.


End file.
